Electronic packaging of the IBM z13 processor drawer

The electronic packaging of the IBM z13™ is the foundation for a processor drawer that provides a significant increase in processing power relative to the IBM zEnterprise® EC12 (zEC12) system while managing power and cost to meet the z13 product objectives. The z13 system architecture differs from previous high-end z Systems™ designs due to the introduction of a drawer-based processor design, organic single-chip modules (SCMs) in place of the ceramic MCMs (multi-chip modules), and a cabled interconnect between drawers in place of the PCB (printed circuit board) backplane of the zEC12. These innovations are coupled with next-generation signaling interfaces, providing a significant increase in signal bandwidth. The next-generation voltage regulation and decoupling provides the efficient power delivery needed to build a new processor subsystem with 40% more processor cores than the zEC12. The memory bandwidth and capacity have more than tripled, and the input/output bandwidth of the processor chip doubled to provide excellent scalability at the processor socket, drawer, and system level. The electronic packaging has been designed to meet all of these challenges, and this paper presents the design and integration of the electronic packaging of the z13 system.